Original scientific paper
Is There a Need of Practising Philosophy
Erna Banić-Pajnić
; Institut za filozofiju, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
Partly influenced by the humanist translations of differently oriented ancient philosophers, partly raised in the critical examination of the assumptions which formed a Weltanschauung accepted for centuries, the Renaissance anew made topical the question about the sense of man's existence, challinging the same time the deep-rooted system of values. The Renaissance philosophers, among other things, discuss this question in the form of a dilemma: to devote one's life to the spiritual values or to the voluptates (exceedingly voluptates corporis), the life in which the bios theoretikos intrudes as ideal, or the life in which, first of all bearing in mind the transitoriness of everything human, one longs for the untroubledness which consists in avoiding any exertion, in particular the intellectual one, and then especially the exertion of practising philosophy.
In this context we have to understand Trankvil’s treatise, which is entirely composed in the humanist spirit, and wich deals with the question whether there is a need of practising philosophy. As a matter of fact, this treatise is a reaction on his contemporaries's theses directed against the traditional system of values. Trankvil has a propensity for the traditionalist trend which is founded on the Platonic-Stoic-Christian interpretation of the fundamental values of human life, and tin which the crucial role belongs precisely to the philosophy, as the branch that makes possible the realization of the supreme values (owing to the fact that it prepares the man for the attainment of the highest goal, summum bonum, which consists in contemplation divinae mentis.
The understanding of the soul (exposed in the treatise which is inserted into the main essay on the need and importance of practising philosophy) functions as an apology of such a system of values as well. In this treatise on the soul Trankvil chiefly takes Slide with the traditionalist position, defending the immortality of the soul wih many arguments, and this is the presupposition for the possibility of laying down the virtue in the manner Trankvil does lit (the virtue which gains its prize after man's death, thus after separation of the soul from the body).
Trankvil's views on the soul and the mutual relationship of the parts of the soul, respectively, are not entirely in harmony with the Aristotelian-Thomistic view, but ms views cannot be labeled 'as Platonic (according to Thomas' interpretation), in the sense that they could unequivocally and completely defend the thesis about many souls of the man.
For Trankvil, namely, the thesis of the Aristotelian-Christian traditional doctrine of the soul is unacceptable, i.e. the thesis which states the possibility of unifing essentially different determinations and properties in one soul, particularly the mortality and the immortality. He insists on the demarcation of the single, essentially diferent parts of the soul, or of the three souls, i.e. on the thesis about the intellectual soul as eminently human, immortal and created by God. On this occasion we should emphasize that his views on this topic are not always stated in an entirely clear man•ner and are not unequivocally determinable. At the same time we can cam that the problems which arise in connection with the soul and which follow from his position, are not thoroughly elaborated in the text.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
84083
URI
Publication date:
4.12.1989.
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